On gratuitous fucks

Films these days are cluttered with gratuitous fucks. I’m talking about good films, thoughtful films, ones with Oscar buzz. I understand there are commercial reasons for wanting your film to have an R rating, and if your film is a grown-up comedy of manners or tale of corporate intrigue mostly devoid of sex and violence, then gratuitous fucks represent an easy path. The problem is that we now seem to be caught in a cycle of gratuitous fuck inflation, so that whereas at one time you needed only one, now you need a good several dozen.

In a grown-up comedy of manners I saw recently, we have a bundle of fucks right in the opening scene. A well-off and stylish Brooklyn couple is showing off their new baby, and the mother says something like, “Having a baby was such the right fucking decision for us.” Another woman, who we shortly learn is having fertility difficulties, chirpily responds, “I am so fucking happy for you!” Later in the scene, another woman leans into the bassinet, peers into the baby’s eyes, and shouts, “She is so fucking adorable!” Or, in a tale of corporate intrigue I saw the other day, we have a mid-level manager burst into a board room, sheaf of pie charts in hand, and announce that “The fourth quarter figures are about what we fucking expected,” even as we later learn that this is not true, the books have been cooked. Needless to say, well-spoken 40 year olds DO NOT TALK THIS WAY, even when ironically foreshadowing. In fact, no one in my experience talks this way. Some construction guys, perhaps, but they do so more purposefully and creatively and never to babies or in polite company or to people who far outrank them.

There are actually three problems here: the fucks themselves, the way they are being deployed in sentences, and how they are being articulated by the actors. In the real world, when someone in a polite setting decides to drop an f-bomb, it’s to convey the gravity of a situation. The speaker glances around to make sure no one is eavesdropping, leans in, puts her hand over her mouth, and murmurs, “Pardon my French,” — such a deliciously odd expression — “but the guy is a fuckinidiot.” Notice how it is used here as a strong intensifier, not just an arbitrary substitute for “quite” or “rather” or “actual”. Note also how the speaker took five distinct measures (the glance, the lean-in, the hand-over-mouth, the low voice, and the request for pardon) to make sure that dear Aunt Maude standing nearby was spared some unnecessary rudeness. And finally, note the lack of pronunciation of the terminal “g”. This is how people say it in real life. In films you hear the word “king” so clearly that it seems like you could cleanly edit a network-TV version filled with curious regal expletives: “I am king happy for you!”

Some actors will also hesitate for perceptible milliseconds before delivering a gratuitous fuck, unconsciously acknowledging that it is out of character even though required by the script. There is a tiny inhalation, a slight tightening around the eyes, a micro version of what you do before jumping into a swimming pool of uncertain temperature. But what if it’s not the acting, but rather a specific part of the direction designed to make it easier to edit a fuck-free version suitable for later airline viewing? Regardless, noticing such things boots me out of the story and makes me aware of all sorts of other details of the film production: What kind of accent is that supposed to be? Wasn’t her hair parted differently a few seconds ago? It’s a winter scene, how hard can it be to use actual snow? (I was tempted to write ACTUAL FUCKING SNOW, but that seemed gratuitous.)

It’s not that I am morally offended. Obviously, this very essay is quite fuck-laden. Fucking fuck-laden. Rather, the offense is more akin to the clang of a persistently flubbed guitar chord. Imagine if every gratuitous fuck were to be replaced with a gratuitous “like”: “Your baby is, like, so adorable.” “The fourth-quarter figures were about, like, what we expected.” We would have exactly the same problem, except one that tacks closer to how people actually talk. I think that such a film would not get good reviews.

Following the initial cluster of fucks, the comedy-of-manners film proceeds for at least an hour before another cluster is encountered. I wonder if this, too, is a production tactic, with these scenes slated for exclusion from the FCC-regulated version right from the start. Or perhaps the filmmakers shot separate fuckful and fuckless versions of these scenes, intending to produce two distinct versions. In any case, the later scene takes place during a young boy’s birthday party, with the climax occuring when the boy tells a feckless hired clown that he can fuck off. This interjectional fuck is a nice changeup from all the prior adjectival fucks, and draws scattered chuckles from the audience, but I also find it kind of sad because it reminds me of the parents I see on the bus who are always yelling at their kids to shut the fuck up even when they haven’t made any noise. Significantly, the kid is off-camera when this line is delivered, which means it was probably dubbed, because no Hollywood director seems mean-spirited enough to have a 7-year-old boy shoot even a single take where he tells a clown to fuck off. This makes me wonder if the voiceover will get its own credit at the end, and how that credit might be presented, and how if I glance over at my wife at just this moment she’ll think, “Oh no, he’s thinking about the film production again.”

But wait, you may be thinking, there are some people in real life who routinely salt their conversations with colorful language. Uncle Milt, who used to swear like a sailor even at the Thanksgiving table, especially after his Alzheimer’s kicked in. That stoner dude who serves coffee at the all-natural food store. The tough-talking football coach who week after week keeps forgetting there are live microphones. Characters like these can be great comic props — surely you are not proposing to expunge or sanitize them? Not at all. The problem is not so much the presence of these types of characters as their absence — instead, we have a weird tendency towards an equitable distribution of gratuitous fucks across all of the characters. It’s as if the filmmakers are trying to offend without ever having to be offensive.

Here is one possible solution: Screenwriters, write the scripts that best fit the characters. If this leaves you with a dearth of f-bombs, so be it. In such an instance, sidestep the dreaded PG or PG-13 rating simply by not submitting the film to the ratings board. Describe the film as “R in nature” and highlight actors over 40 years of age on the movie poster. No one under 17 will even consider seeing it. That, or throw in a gratuitous c-word. You’ll only need one of those.